Author: Shirley C. Raines and Robert J. Canady
Overall Rating (1-10): 9
Value (1-10): 10
Flexibility (1-10):9
Ages/Grades: 1-3
Review:
I wanted to review this book because I know it is a popular series of books but don’t know anyone who has used it, first hand. I had no idea what to expect. I have to say, it is really fabulous! I had no idea that such a small book could contain pretty much everything I might need to create a full curriculum over the course of a year!
Story Stretchers uses the unit study approach combined with the learning through literature approach. I’ve tried putting together my own unit studies in the past but tend to get overwhelmed with the resources available to us and end up spending an inordinate amount of time researching books and websites, etc. Story Stretchers does all of this for you.
This book is broken down into 18 units of study based on what most teachers introduce children to in the primary grades. Topics such as Feelings, Machines, Weather, Animals, Poems and many more units are presented. Each unit then contains several books pertaining to that unit. For each book, the storyline is explained (I love this!), read-aloud suggestions are given and then a series of story stretchers – ways to make the literature stretch across the curriculum – are presented. Art, cooking, music, games, writing, math and creative dramatics are just some of the areas that each book might span across.
Pulling from the book, during a unit on Feelings, it is suggested that the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” be presented. Several read-aloud suggestions are given to help the children really enjoy and think about the literature. Afterward, there are ideas for studying the style of illustration in the book and reproducing it, a cooking project taken from the book is completed along with another fun food-related activity, different scenes from the book are pantomimed out by the child or children, a pretend shoe store can be set up and shoe varieties graphed and charted, inventory taken and other fun math skills and books of their own are created filled with stories of their own good or bad days.
There is plenty in this book to last at least one year – probably several years. If this isn’t enough, the Story Stretchers books are now a series so there are several more books to fill in the gaps, if needed. My only gripe about this book, and this is purely personal, is that I found some of the literature (very little) to be fluffy – not the kind of literature I would usually choose to present to my primary aged children. And this unit study through literature approach does not work well across the ages – my fourth grader would be very difficult to incorporate into the studies although my two year old would be a breeze. I found that I had to use the unit studies while my older child was working independently and that worked very well for us. This has nothing to do with the book, of course, and everything to do with the method. So if you already have literature-based learning down pat, this won’t be a problem for you at all.
Bottom Line: This book, for grades first through third, is a great complete curriculum for those who enjoy learning through literature unit studies approach. It takes the time and labor of planning unit studies completely out of the equation and hand-picks some mostly top quality children’s literature to introduce to your child during the primary years with plenty of hands-on, fun and creative ways to extend the literature into all areas of the curriculum.
Buy Now: Story Stretchers for the Primary Grades: Activities to Expand Children’s Favorite Books